Electrical connectors may be terminated to the ends of electrical wires or in between the ends to form tap connections. When this is done with respect to cables having pairs, or multiples of pairs of wires, and particularly with respect to twisted pairs of wires, care must be taken to properly orient the wires relative to the connectors and the terminals thereof to assure that the appropriate wires relative to voltages, signal, and grounding pathways are maintained.
A conventional example of a tap connector utilized with multiple wires is disclosed in Japanese Patent Number 128460/1987. In a use of such connectors, the wires are typically numbered or colored to identify the appropriate wire relative to the terminals of the connector. One problem with such use, particularly experienced with automatic termination through machines arises by virtue of the fact that the wires must be identified in some way prior to termination. This results in either an opportunity for error, or a requirement that the wires be fed in a precise way with some means of detecting the color or identification of the wire in order to assure proper termination. If errors are made and the wire is improperly terminated, the wiring harness resulting therefrom is typically scrapped as it cannot be repaired economically.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a novel connector capable of being randomly terminated to electrical conductor wires, such as twisted pair wires. It is a further object to provide a tap connector capable of being interconnected to a pair of wires at the ends or intermediate the ends of a cable without the need to initially identify the orientation of the wires. It is still a further object to provide an improved method for terminating multiple conductor wires, and particularly twisted pair wires, to electrical connectors for use in a harness.